Thoughts on technology start-ups in Scotland
May 18, 2012 Leave a comment
Don’t Waste Time is great advice for start-ups on avoiding getting caught up in the minutia of running a business while missing the bigger issues. It also links a wealth of other information to help with areas that often take up more time in small companies than is really justified. It is part of the HumbledMBA blog, which is an eclectic collection of thoughts form startup-land which I find both informative and enjoyable.
May 11, 2012 Leave a comment
If you’ve ever wanted practical tips on demonstrating software, particularly Software as a Service, then you should check out this post Stunningly Awful SaaS Demos – Lost in the Clouds. It is just one example of the wealth of thoughts and advice around demoing software that you can find on the Great Demo! blog, much of which is actually pretty widely applicable outside of software too…
May 10, 2012 1 Comment
Grants: A road to nowhere?
Public money and business are often uneasy bedfellows. Stimulating a healthy economy is a core function for government as no-one can prosper without a sound business base, at least in a capitalist society (I’ll leave the debate about whether we should be capitalists to those far more knowledgeable than me). Governments use legislation and the tax system to promote activity they believe will contribute to a healthy society (such as job creation), and to discourage activity they consider unhealthy (such as making people redundant or polluting the environment). The public purse spends billions of pounds each year acquiring products and services from the private sector, and can use this spending to promote positive business behaviour too, although in practice this seldom seems to happen. In comparison with legislation, taxation, and public spending, grants represent a minuscule amount of money.
Yet I believe that grants can have an incredibly toxic effect on businesses – especially small and startup businesses. If small businesses were irrelevant to the economy as a whole then perhaps this wouldn’t matter, but small businesses are not irrelevant. Small businesses (collectively) employ a huge number of people, contribute a massive proportion of job creation, and are the big businesses of tomorrow. Governments claim to have support for small business right at the forefront of their agenda.
Here are some of the dangers of grants for businesses – and I believe I have seen businesses fail as a result of these. My comments come largely from my perspective as a someone working mostly with Scottish technology companies, however I believe many of my observations have wider applicability.
May 4, 2012 Leave a comment
A colleague passed this link on to me a couple of weeks ago, after a discussion about how to use commission effectively with a sales team. I found it rather amusing, if a little contrived, and a great warning that you have to be very careful what you measure and reward, as that is exactly what you will get: The Story of the The Well Intentioned Commisar.
May 1, 2012 1 Comment
Any spare change?
Back in December I blogged about some of the different types of crowdfunding under the title Crowdfunding Chaos, where I tried to categorise some of the types of crowdfunding that were emerging and link to some relevant sites and articles.
Since then things have moved on somewhat, especially in the Crowd Equity space where funders receive shares in the ownership of a business they are funding.
April 27, 2012 Leave a comment
Scotland Startup Digest is a weekly mailing that notifies you of forthcoming startup related events in Scotland.
You can view the events calendar or sign up for the mailing here: http://startupdigest.com/scotland/
April 24, 2012 Leave a comment
Will your startup go up in smoke without a Plan B?
I’ve just finished reading “Angels, Dragons and Vultures” by Simon Acland. Although the book is focussed on venture investments rather than the Angel investments that I am familiar with, I found it a useful and interesting read and much of the advice is wholly applicable to seed or angel stage companies – I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in investment in technology companies.
The author makes one assertion that sits less well with my experience of early stage companies, which is that there should always be a “Plan B”. By this he means that a company should never depend for its continued existence on a things happening as planned, and should always plan for contingencies. This might mean planning to scale back the size of the team if sales don’t come in as expected, or if investment is harder to raise than expected. He rightly points out how easily expected cash inflows can slip, and that in the absence of a Plan B the management team can be trapped into taking investment on disastrous terms.
In many of the technology start-ups where I have had been closely involved, there has been no Plan B. There have, on occasion, been points in the history of the company where without a sale coming in, or if an investment round fails, the company is doomed.
April 20, 2012 1 Comment
For many of the technology start-ups I have worked in, corporate giants appear to be the natural first targets as customers, but is this really the right strategy? Is the effort involved in unlocking these sales worthwhile?
March 23, 2012 Leave a comment
I’ve been a bit remiss in my blogging lately, but I came across this link today and though it was very much worth posting. It’s one companies story of how an acquisition went wrong. I don’t know how common this is, but it’s worth being aware of the possibility of parties acting in bad faith…
February 11, 2012 Leave a comment
I came across a new free site which provides basic screen sharing. It’s much cheaper and easier to use than WebEx, although it is a fairly basic tool at the moment. However, if you want to present or demonstrate remotely it seems to be up to the job. Check it out at http://www.screenleap.com/.
The one caveat I should state is that it’s not completely secure (as in principle someone could “guess” a meeting number) but I don’t think it’s any worse than WebEx in that respect, and it’s a lot simpler to use.
